verano eterno

there were some people and moments with beauty so striking that i know i will never, ever forget them.

drench

you've become a fixation for me and i'd let your skin drench and consume me like the south american sun. would you feed my hunger with your own? we could look at all the rooftops in la paz, reflecting the southern hemisphere rays and all the promises that were made and forgotten that you can't see when you're farther up. it looks as perfect as when you watch a city fade away from an airplane window and you can't see the human drama permeating the streets; all the houses lined up like terracotta crayons in a box. we're so far above it all now. the thought catches my breath in my throat- i can barely breathe in this city and all the noise in my head is so much quieter. we're so high up, no pressure to keep us here and coming down will ring me out.

you think it's wrong for me? that it's impermanent and won't sustain. that's been the nature of most things i've ever had; coming and going with the fleeting intensity of a summer sunburn. it's all fervor and desire. for a while it makes it better- like sleeping on the ground or staying up all night. i've been reading too much henry miller.

we are so far from where we were, from where i'm from. i'm with you and they've lost us anyway, like hemmingway and all his friends.

oaxaca

la vida es como la espuma, por eso hay que darse como el mar.

life is like the surf, so give yourself away like the sea.

y tu mamá también

pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly i saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

and i, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
i wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

pablo neruda

sin nombre

could we wander around with the same whirlwind lust that we used to? now, now. where everything lit up for us like that night after your cousin's graduation party, when we snuck off near the pond and the whole thing started glowing like an amorphous cloud and the moment seemed to settle into our bones like the fireflies on the grass, and it was like all our blood was transfused between us? you told me you could read the story the stars were pouring onto the ground, and the story was just as much of us as anyone else in the world. they asked us if we could remember when we were all part of stars ourselves. i told them i couldn't remember, but when i come back i know i will. it will flood back into me like a child finally finding their block after they rode their bike farther away than they ever had before. i couldn't remember feeling more connected to someone than i did then. with you, and connected with everyone else that could hear them too. i can't forget these events that happened, because they have been breathed into every atom i have and etched into the history of the universe like everything else.

sleep deprivation

people say i have a beautiful imagination. i used to love it, because everything around me has sparks of color and wonder no one else sees. it's all riddled with secret doorways and powdered light, and ricocheting through the hallways of my mind like a firecracker. sometimes i hate it though, because i imagine people as different from what they are. like you, because all you ever were was someone i should stay away from. i didn't see it though, because i saw all the shadows keeping you in and wished i could make them go. i have blood and rust too, i didn't judge you for that. you didn't see my mind or marrow, though, or any of the things that i see at all- you saw me and decided it was better to undo my sutures and fill it in with brine.

i wonder if you feel bad- feel bad for leaving me with my heart in my throat and the perpetual feeling of missing a stair walking down my staircase. i'm too tired to sleep. you occupied my head like a fever, drying everything up from the inside out and leaving something of a brittle hollow ringing all through my lungs. i can't warm up or get rid of the dehydration no matter how many clothes i put on. maybe you meant me to feel it all, or maybe you meant me to feel nothing. you want to know how much harder you need to push before i break?

not much harder.

my kisses used to turn you inside out

Do I still need to go to St. Petersburg if I've already been to Candy Castle?


inside myself is a place where i live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.

pearl s. buck
I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

La belle est toujours bizarre.


If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

Carl Sagan

crashingly beautiful

After hiking through the mountain for about an hour, we came upon Las Cuevas. We were the only ones on the beach- essentially alone in a lagoon with a cascading waterfall. As we walked over the white sand into the shallow water, I felt more happy than I could remember. I thought about my position on a map- in the middle of the Amazon River Basin, in the jungle, next to a secluded waterfall. I thought about the people I was with- a Bolivian, Canadian and Romanian. I thought about the sequence of events that had led me up to that point- led me here to this exact place with these people- and felt grateful for each moment of my life it took. I get that feeling sometimes, and it’s hard to remember why I get depressed or anxious when life seems so overwhelmingly beautiful. I was thousands of miles away from home in a place I didn’t even know existed, between the fabled city of El Dorado and the place where Che Guevara was killed. I was with people I had didn't meet until I left home to come here. I was so tired, and I had the kind of slaphappy feeling where you say exactly what you want to- or you don’t have to say anything, and you know that the feeling of moment is so transcendent that you don’t have to. I felt like all the anxiety and questions that I have were baked out of me in the South American sun and then washed away by the crashing water. Sometimes my wanderlust is naive, and the things I picture in my head result in disillusionment and reality. Sometimes, though, things are better than I could ever imagine, and I am awestruck by the life I have been given and the majesty of everything. If I continue to have that feeling, even if it's fleeting and I wish more than anything that it wouldn’t end, I know that anything that happens in between is worth it.

counterfeit paradise

“Cahroleen, you don’t understand. I won’t receive a work visa, and I do not have the money to pay to study in the US. I would have to work for it to be possible.”

“You mean, you would find a job to work where you would be undocumented?”

“Yes.”

For a second I had nothing to say. I immediately thought about the US, and the stigma of an illegal immigrant. If he were to do as he had just explained, he would join that group. That stigma would be applied to him.

He told me this while we were walking around a remote town in the mountains. He was switching between perfect English and Spanish, leading me and four other foreigners through the dirt roads. His enthusiasm toward explaining the scenery around us was unwavering.

I thought about the situation in Arizona, and the current public attitude toward illegal immigrants. I thought about the widespread conception of the motivations and attitudes that Americans have of them. And I thought of my friend. He works as an engineer and is one of the most outgoing and helpful people I’ve ever met. I thought of the environment he would be entering and the way he would be received. I tried to explain to him, but I hesitated when I realized what I was saying. I couldn’t stop wondering about the stories of other immigrants, and the fact that he is surely not unique in his situation. He is the antithesis of the negative stereotypes associated with undocumented immigrants, yet that was what his desire to work in the US would make him.

I again was stunned by the complexity of penning legislation in the interest of the state when confronted with an individual’s reality. The seeming impossibility of reconciling a collective interest and group mentality with a person's life and desires. When things hit me like that, and I realize that parts of my own thinking are the result of a societal attitude that I did not adequately question and examine from every perspective, I feel terrible. I like to think that I am able to see things from perspectives other than my own. It is something I strive for all the time. It is the main reason that I feel compelled to leave my immediate environment to experience other ways of life. Still, some things do not seem real to me until I encounter it myself. The idea of my friend, wanting to come to America to receive an education that he could not afford, and becoming part of the statistic of illegal workers, I cringed.

I thought of how at home he was here, how he was effortlessly navigating unmarked streets and immediately translating everything that was said around us. I thought of him living alone in the United States, unaware of the environment surrounding the kind of work he was going to enter. An environment that I don’t understand myself, but have read enough about to realize the trying conditions and potential repercussions. I thought about how I would perceive him differently if I met him at home, in that context, instead of here. I tried to attribute my feeling to my general inclination toward being overly-sensitive, but I could not. I am more affected by the situations of others than I would like to be. While he was speaking I remembered a passage of the book I’m reading about exploration in the Amazon.

Betty Meggers of the Smithosonian Institution is perhaps the most influential modern archaeologist of the Amazon. In 1971 she famously summed up the region as a ‘counterfeit paradise,’ a place that, for all its fauna and flora, is inimical to human life. Rains and floods, as well as the pounding sun, leach vital nutrients from the soil and make large-scale agriculture impossible.

David Grann

Ironically, this description of the soil in the Amazon being inhospitable reminded me of the situation that many encounter upon entering a foreign land. It reminded me of the environment that many people are faced with when coming to America. It reminded me of the stories I’ve heard from my grandmother, about her life as a German immigrant putting two children through medical school. It reminded me of the English class I was teaching earlier, when one of my students explained that her brother moved to Nebraska with the intent of living the “American Dream” but ended up in an unyielding battle with unemployment and discrimination. It reminded me of the shining appeal of a democratic, capitalist country, and the reality that then sets in for foreigners within its shores. I thought about my life, and the town that I grew up in.

Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives that I'm not living.

Jonathan Safran

Sometimes I am hesitant to write about issues that occupy my mind like this, but I feel like it is impossible not to. I realize that the issue is complex, and that there are people who know more about it than I do. I realize that a personal encounter with a situation does not constitute a comprehensive understanding of the problem in a larger context. I think it's important to consider realities other than your own, though, and to try to understand what is going on around you. Whenever I express an opinion, my mind immediately reels to the other side and I realize doubts in my conviction and how I might not be right. I feel like I can’t think about anything else until I do say them, though.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

Bukowski

Sometimes I don’t like sleeping, because then I don’t have control of the thoughts filling up my brain. I can’t ignore all the noise in my head when everything else is quiet.

1989

nuestra senora de guadalupe, ruega por nosotros


something about those bright colors
would always make you feel better
but now we speak with ruined tongues
and the words we say aren’t meant for anyone
i'm gonna give you only one reply
i know not who i am.

conor oberst

"At least in Fawcett's mind, what he had been taught his whole life about the superiority of Western civilization clashed with what he experienced beyond its shores. 'I transgressed again and again the awful laws of traditional behavior, but in doing so learned a great deal,' he said. Over the years, his attempt to reconcile these opposing forces, to balance his moral absolutism and cultural relativism, would force him into bizarre contradictions and greater heresies."

David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

white light white heat

We were next to each other on one of the most crowded buses I have ever been on, as it only is in Bolivia, and I barely knew him but he was basically forced to sit on top of me. His English was really elementary, and most of the time he addressed me in soft Spanish with accompanying hand gestures. He started explaining the sprawling rainforest landscape, and I understood almost all of the narration- he spoke slowly enough that I could understand nearly every word. He barely broke eye contact for the ten minute bus ride, so I didn't either. For some reason there wasn't the usual amount of communication lost in translation, resulting in a rudimentary understanding of each other. It felt like something was gained- like someone had taken the moment and plugged it into an electric socket. That the only parts of the conversation that were there were the ones that were conductors, and everything around us was coated in waves of energy. If I touched anything a jolting buzz would emanate into my blood. Not in a way that would be painful, but in a way that would make me feel alive. I didn't touch anything though, I just watched the current pulsing around and listened to the foreign language, intermittently nodding with "Sí, sí, entiendo," until we arrived at the río.

so i look for your eyes, and the waves of light that pour right out of them.

yo la tengo

cuz you're the places that i wanted to go

can i kiss your dopamine?

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

i don't need drugs. i am drugs.
dalí

places to go:

moscow
houston
tel aviv
upper peninsula

the preceding photos are mine, the following are not.

i refuse to give up my obsession.

ginsberg

things fall apart

What I'm trying to say is that I wish things had worked out better for you. I wish it more than anything in the world. When I look at you now, the circles under your eyes become more pronounced every day. It's as if time has added to your fatigue as continuously as it adds each passing hour. As relentless as time. If I could undo it, I would. I would give my livelihood to you as fully as you needed to get by yourself. If I could drain my vitality to give yours back, I would. All that I want is for that to be enough. Your happiness means more to me than does my own. I would rather have you than have myself.

fairground doctor

For the first time since all this happened, I feel my understanding of the world start to shift, as if it's only now- now that I know this is all true- that I can allow myself to start answering all the questions I have: to start adding up all the pieces of information and all my experiences.

I am suddenly sure that the moment when you catch someone's eye, or the moment you think someone's looking at you, or the moment when you think of someone and then they ring, or the moment when you start getting lost in a building you know so well because most other people in it are lost- these aren't accidents. They relate in some way to the structure of the physical world, to the fact that all our minds are as connected as everything else.

Scarlett Thomas

you don't know nothin about where we're from

Three weeks ago I took a flight 4,407 miles away from home alone, to be greeted by people I had not met before. I have had some of the most eye opening experiences of my life, and days that have made me feel both intensely frustrated and satisfied. However, I have not felt more far away from home than I did Monday night.

Monday night at dinner, after a German girl stated that it had always been one of her father’s dreams to settle in the United States, an older man from another European country joined the conversation.

“Why?” he asked. “Why would anyone want to live in such a god-awful place? It is the worse place on the planet. They are killing thousands of people. They made George Bush, and now they have made Obama.” He elaborated about his stance on the deployment of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The man then looked directly at me and said it is the last place that he would ever want to visit.

The Bolivian girl disagreed with him apprehensively: “I fell in love with the United States when I was in Washington. The people were so nice to me. If you had said that about Bolivia, that all Bolivians supported Evo Morales or it was an awful place, I would be very angry.”

“Good people in a country do not make a good country,” the man said.

I didn’t say anything. I have traveled enough to know that it is typically not advisable to speak about American politics in different countries. I stared straight at him and waited for him to finish his rant. It was obvious he wanted me to disagree, and generally I have no problem with arguing. However in the middle of South America, being the only person from the United States at dinner with people from five different countries, I was at a loss for how to handle the situation. It takes a lot to offend me, but by brazenly insulting the United States and failing to make any differentiations between political disagreement and personal insult, he accomplished it.

Earlier in the conversation, when the man learned that I was from Chicago, he looked at me with an expression of disbelief and said “Wow. I thought that the last of you had fled out of here. It is not common to meet Americans in Bolivia.” Unaware of what was to come in the conversation, I had told him that I have heard that his country is absolutely beautiful. It takes a special kind of arrogance to openly insult someone who you have just met, and who was not only friendly but complimentary.

I have traveled fairly extensively for my age, and this is the first time I have directly encountered unprovoked, direct hostility from someone of another country. Of course, I have witnessed obvious anti-American sentiment, however I have never personally been offended. I have met many foreigners in the US, and I can’t imagine ever making a derogatory statement to them about their home country, no matter what it is. Typically, I have found my acceptance and appreciation for people different from myself to be met with a similar attitude.

I have always felt appreciation for my American citizenship and home in Chicago, however it is even more evident when it is challenged. When the man said that, I wished that we were in Chicago, and he could have absorbed the repercussions of his statement there. The reality of the situation was that I felt more alone than I have in a long time. I am lucky to say, however, that this event has been the most ostracized I have felt in my stay here.

I love America.

tropic of cancer

I have been in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia for 10 days now. I wish I could write more frequently, but it is hard to articulate all the things that happen every day.

I love South America. The people are beautiful, and the city seems to run in a manner very near to chaos. At first this frightened me, but it is becoming more and more liberating. I love the way Bolivians say my name, 'Cah ro leen.'

There is a simultaneous wildness and modesty that is characteristic of los cruceños, and I appreciate it more every day. They seem to have a lust for life far less inhibited by consumerism and bureaucracy. I love the way that some people look at me here, like there are hundreds of things they want to say, but are prevented by the translational gap. I feel that they are able to communicate more to me than they are aware. I wish I had a book by Pablo Neruda here.

and one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.
pablo neruda

a mutual addiction

I realize now that my actions have become slightly manic, like those of an addict. After this I will be withdrawn and unable to think of anything aside from my next fix. It's not healthy, and it's not lasting. It's for right now. If the future doesn't involve it, I don't want it to come. Right now my future is stretching in front of me like a gravel road to be walked barefoot. The pain won't be acute, but it will be constant. I wish I didn't think about it so much, but I can't help it. It's beyond obsession. I wish I could develop normal penchants and inclinations, but I can't. It's as if I am lacking a chemical that I had before but my body can no longer produce. I can't be accountable for things I do now. If I could, I would drink a sleeping draught. Powerful and immediate, like a shade being drawn over a window. This would slow the off kilter reeling of my mind. All it does is spin and spin and drive me crazy with the immensity of everything.
I put two mirrors directly across from each other to illuminate my room. Looking at them reminds me of you, reflecting wildly forever. They constantly spit light and noise back and forth and when you look at one you can see the other replicated for infinity behind the glass.

write it on your heart

I'm done with school- completely done with exams and leaving for South America in two days. Last night I went to the city to see some of my friends before I left. It was a crazy night and I ran from an apartment on Dearborn to Navy Pier to Wrigleyville and saw friends from work, high school, and U of I. I stayed with two friends of mine from Nazareth, and in the morning we sat by the lake and talked for a while. When we were driving back on Lake Shore Drive, I kept telling my friend how happy I was. It was so beautiful out, and I kept looking at Lake Michigan and all the people walking along it. I have always loved Chicago, but for some reason its beauty seemed especially transcendent. I remembered the fog of Navy Pier and the twinkling lights of the buildings the night before, and the charmingly chaotic nightlife of the North Side. I couldn't articulate the feeling I had that made me feel like my heart was swelling with my gratitude for everything.

Imagine we're astronauts who have crashed on the moon. We're stranded. We look up into the sky and see the beautiful blue Earth, but can't get back to it because our ship is damaged. All we can do is look at that brilliant blue orb in the cold black sky and long to be home again.

But suppose we managed to fix our craft after all, and landed once again, on Earth. How would we feel as we first set foot upon the Earth? What would we observe and savor? How intensely would we experience the smells and flavors, the gentle rain, or the warm sand underfoot?

This, says Thich Nhat Hanh, is how we should walk on the earth with each step.

Steve Hagan

My friend and I started talking about immigration, and the difficulty in reconciling the idea that open borders aren't feasible with the fact that immigrants are undoubtedly looking for opportunities that they don't have in the country where they are coming from. To me, it is presents a moral dilemma to deny someone an opportunity that you were given by pure chance. There was nothing that I did to earn the life I was given. I am so lucky to have been born in the United States. I am so fortunate to be in one of the most beautiful cities in the whole world. I feel that an awareness and gratitude of the circumstances that I was born into is conducive to acting in a way that promotes the lessening of the disparities in the world.

I explained my interest in international development to my friend, and my belief that there will be no end to civil strife, corrupt governments, and denial of basic human rights in periphery nations until they are able to ascend out of poverty. I saw Muhammad Yunus speak at U of I, and one thing that he said has stuck with me for months:

The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world.. all we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them.

While I was speaking to my friend, I confessed my feeling of inadequacy in being able to effect change. I feel like there is so much to be done, and I should be doing it. But who am I? A 20-year-old, idealist college student. I do not have the platform or the devices to influence change on the scale I would like to.

I realized then how negative I was being- I have as much potential as anyone else. You can't change the world just by wishing it to be so. By changing the way that I act, the things I do, the life that I live I will effect change. Going to Santa Cruz de la Sierra to teach English will have an impact, and even if in a small way, I will be living a life reflective of my ideals. I am happy for that.

i'm surprised no one's told you before

I'm in the middle of exams, and it's really easy to get sucked into the super competitive atmosphere. It's exhausting and demoralizing. I kind of reached a point today where I couldn't study anymore, and felt overwhelmingly drained.

I can study all I want, but I won't get the grade that I want to get. I'm not smart enough. It's too difficult.

I realized then how close to being done my year was. Two projects and an exam away. That made me think about all the things that happened this year, and what they've meant to me. How many things I've done in 9 months, and how much everything has changed. I started to feel a little bit better then. I remembered times that seemed very difficult, and how they had worked out. Because they did work out. I made it work then, and I will now.

I think it's just as important to appreciate what you've done as it is to think about how far you have to go. It is easy for me to say that, and to be honest it is something I rarely do. I often feel overwhelmed by the expectations that I have for myself, and what I see as my limitations. I constantly feel like I should be doing more. I should be studying harder, I should be more conscience of my carbon footprint, I should be keeping in better contact with old friends. It seems that the more you try to realize your potential, the higher your expectations for yourself become. That's not a bad thing, ambition and drive are important. But it's also important to recognize how far you've already come.

As useful as it is to make resolutions on what you need to improve, how will you be happy if you don't stop and appreciate where you've been? There will always be more that you can do, or things you can improve upon. This doesn't make what you've done insignificant. Think about all the things that you've learned, all the people you've met. Make a list of accomplishments of the year. Be happy with that, because the world is different because you've done those things. Just by living your life, you have had an impact on everyone around you. Remember that when you start to feel insignificant. You are the furthest thing from that.

The road goes on for a long time, but you've made it this far. You must be doing something right. In fact, you're probably doing a lot of things right. You're probably doing more things right than you're aware of. You probably impress people all the time with what you've accomplished, but because of your own ambition you don't see it yourself. It is good to strive for more, but give yourself credit for what you've done. Recognize the beauty and the potential in the world around you, and recognize those things in yourself. No one said progress had to be linear. Let yourself see what other people see in you all the time.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived- this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

hungary

italy

sweden

turning your orbit around

Your pupil is like a black hole, and when I look at you it's as if I I can't see anything aside from it. Everything around me gets caught up in the inertia and the matter all goes hurtling toward you. The light getting pulled in makes streaks that look like fire scorching against the sky. I go tumbling down but don't hit anything, it's just that my sense of direction gets thrown to hell and I lose where I was going in the first place. You don't see it, but I can barely maintain the path I'm on, the force is too consuming. If I resist it little parts will fracture off into the tide. I know that I should want my autonomy back, but I don't. The universe is too infinite without you keeping me here, and I don't want to get lost in the expanse. If I go too far I will get colder and colder and freeze like Hoth. If I wasn't straining against the gravity I would be spun out in the opposite direction and I would never be back again.

one flew east, one flew west

"Madness." But what does that even mean? Just that you think in a different way than everyone else, you see things other people don't see. But that's not a bad thing. And who cares if from time to time you write about things that other people think are strange or morbid or crazy- what do you think people thought about Lolita or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Catcher in the Rye when they first came out? But unordinary things exist in life. And people who are poetically and artistically literate appreciate someone who can see the beauty or the importance in things that other people shy away from.

Alexandra Koys

east of eden

Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It’s okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

Miranda July

I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home.

High Fidelity

I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

F. Scott Fitzgerald